Monday, June 18, 2012

If the first week wasn't the biggest learning curve ever, week 2 had even more excitement.
Feeling so sleep deprived I could see into other dimensions, my body still healing from a c section and having a tiny creature demanding constant feeding I was feeling like I was on the brink of insanity and could certainly see how sleep deprivation is a great form of torture.
Here are a few things that helped keep me sane....

Monday, June 11, 2012

Our first week home was a steep learning curve. No midwives around to help latch or tell me what each cry meant. There were tears, frustration and confusion but we soon got the hang of things. We figured out our little Clam loves a bath, hates her nappy being changed and just wants to be cuddled most of the time, which is fine with us because she is the cutest thing ever.

Below are a few items that made life a little easier for us all in the first week.

Saturday, June 9, 2012

As the saying goes " The best laid plans of mice and men oft go astray" and how spot on it was for the birth of our little girl.
Thinking that I had planned every aspect of birth imaginable, Clem decided she didn't want things to go my way, instead we had to change everything we thought was going to happen and put our faith in the doctors, nurses and midwives to ensure our Clam's safe arrival.
So this may be a little TMI, but if you think that, then what are you doing reading a pregnancy blog, huh?
A few days before Clem's arrival I had been getting period pains and strong Braxton Hicks and that general feeling that she would be here any day soon. I was getting tired of being pregnant and ready to meet our little girl, so on Saturday I drank heaps of raspberry leaf tea, straightened my hair and went and did the shopping. We came home and had a spicy dinner and watched The Green Mile on tv. At 11.30 I was still feeling period-y, we were about to go to bed when I went to the bathroom and had a bloody show. I was so excited and scared at the same time. I checked the internet to see what would happen next, but it said it could take days for things to eventuate so we went to bed. At 2am I went to the bathroom again and there was more show, but slightly different colour. I went back to bed and shut my eyes for what seemed 5 minutes and felt a small gush. I jumped up and ran to the bathroom and realised it was my waters breaking. I noticed that the colour was a bit strange, slightly greeny brownish. I called out to the husband and got him to call the hospital, to which they replied to come in straight away as they feared the meconium may have leaked into the amniotic fluid.
We grabbed our bags and headed to the hospital and on the way there my contractions began, they were short and relatively painless at this point. By 2.45am we were at the hospital and I had to give a urine sample and they checked my amniotic fluid and confirmed that there was meconium present. That eliminated my plans of a nice, relaxing water birth then and there.
I was taken to a delivery room and hooked up to a fetal heart monitor, contraction monitor, a blood pressure monitor and a drip. The midwives were going to induce me for a natural labour but my body began contracting on its own at this point.
So far all my plans had been thrown out the window and I hadn't taken any labour classes because I assumed I'd be following what my body told me to do. Contractions at this point were lasting over a minute and getting stronger, longer and closer together. I was then given an internal check to see how far along I was. The midwife seemed a little concerned that something didn't feel right and checked for the baby's position again. BREECH. Somehow she had gone from fully engaged and then flipped upside down. They didn't know how and neither did I.
It was decided that I would be getting a caesarean immediately as her heartbeat wasn't fluctuating with the contractions either. They had another mother in theatre with an emergency, so I was kept in (drug free) labour until she was finished. At 8am I was taken into theatre, given an epidural (try doing that while you're having contractions) it gave me the worst shivers ever. I was numbed and cut open and at 8.48am our little Clementine Louise gave her first cry. I got to catch a quick peek at her before she was taken by Daddy to care for her while I was stitched back together and sent to recovery.
Recovery absolutely sucked. I sat there alone and drugged up while waiting to get feeling back in my lower half. For 2 hours I asked when I could go see my baby. I pretended I was The Bride from Kill Bill willing my toes to move so they would let me go see my family.
I was wheeled to the maternity ward and finally got to meet my little baby properly. She was perfect. 10 fingers, 10 toes. She weighed 3238g and was 48cm long.
In all of the scenarios I had imagined, this was definitely not one of them, but she was here and there were no further complications, so I felt incredibly lucky to be holding the tiny bundle in my arms.
We stayed in the hospital for 2 nights to monitor us both and came home on a rainy Tuesday morning.